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I click on it, not working for me.

Try this, www.atari.com/forums

Thanks Fishers of Men, I got it now. Thanks.

ORIGINAL: taltamir

disable pirates...

That was my solution too because fighting off wave after wave of pirates was preventing me from enjoying the game. Pirates are ok but pirates should be an infrequent annoyance and not frequent.

ORIGINAL: taltamir

I noticed that the higher you set the pirates to be, the more of them there are, the more powerful their ships, and so on...

I turn them off completely... I find that they always have smaller ships if you set them to low.

the largest pirate i've seen was a cruiser and it was one of those large preset rat forces garding independant worlds

i don't think they can make ships larger than destroyers... and if they did then their bases should be upgraded equally i think

ORIGINAL: lostsm

ORIGINAL: taltamir

I noticed that the higher you set the pirates to be, the more of them there are, the more powerful their ships, and so on...

I turn them off completely... I find that they always have smaller ships if you set them to low.

the largest pirate i've seen was a cruiser and it was one of those large preset rat forces garding independant worlds

i don't think they can make ships larger than destroyers... and if they did then their bases should be upgraded equally i think

set pirates to high and you constantly get attacked by pirate cruisers... and IIRC even capital ships... they CAN'T make ships that big in NORMAL settings. increase the pirates "level" and they will, decrease it and they will be limited to frigates.

ORIGINAL: Xmudder

I had 6 pirate ships warp in from 3 directions a few minutes into a new game, where I started with all of 2 combat ships. How, exactly, is this fun?

Eh, that's not so bad. Bad would be if they all came from the SAME direction. Since they're all in DIFFERENT directions, you can pick one direction, kill the ones there, and by the time the other two groups catch up, you can RUN AWAY!

In my new game, I increased pirates and Space Monsters all the way to max. I am trying to make a bigger fleet but getting close to being into the red, so hopefully I can find these pirate bases and pick them off one at a time. Now from what I am reading here, I think I am regretting what I did. Oh well, time will tell now. [:)]

Two observations:

As to the private sector ships, the fault seems to be in the combat AI while they are set to flee on sight of enemy, they do no do that. This is a bug that needs fixing.

I do not find pirates that much of a hassle. I do arm mining stations to a point they can take care of most pirates. As long as your economy is strong, both public and private, you actual make money on the private sector having to replace freighters and it is easy to keep several fleets available to clean out pirates and beasties interfering with important freighter runs. Above and beyond this they are a great source of info. Since after getting a good core empire established with all necessary luxury and strategic goods, I only colonize where there are native populations or ruins to give good development boosts, the locations of both can be bought from the pirates. ( I of course also settle planets with the super luxury goods but those I have to find on my own.)

My problem with pirates is that they are impossible to eradicate... there is always the same amount of them, which depends on the level you set them to.
I expected that setting pirates to high will give me a tough extra opponent to crush, but even when I conquered the galaxy and I am the only empire and I colonized every single planet and moon in the game there is an exact amount of pirate empires, and no matter how many i destroy new ones pop right back up..
And no matter how much I paid them (say, for secrets that they found) they will not get stronger.

So I disable pirates because this type of opponent is not what I wanted.